Dear America: Moderate Muslims Exist
While the article is insightful it bears remembering religious people of any faith in a free country can be counted as moderate.
In western democracies, the majority of believers of faith eschew fanaticism in favor of moderation.- SC&A
Dear America: Moderate Muslims Exist - Killing the Buddha
As an Afghan-American Muslim, and as the wife of an American diplomat living abroad in Ukraine, the attack in Benghazi felt personal. The loss of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others stirred up feelings I’d been struggling to deal with as a Muslim-American after 9/11: Are the actions of the few the responsibility of us all? Are we expected to become apologists for a religion that is in conflict sometimes with itself, and sometimes with the outside world? As an American Muslim, will there ever come a time when my loyalty to America won’t come into question?
Once again I was made to feel, by association, like the enemy. To remedy this feeling I had to step back into the role of an ambassadorial Muslim, to be on my best behavior, to lead by example, and to show that not all Muslims are evil and full of rage.
It’s not a role I relish, but the reality is, that as unpaid, untrained, self-proclaimed Muslim goodwill ambassadors, none of us will be retiring any time soon. Our role seems only to be getting harder and more necessary as the politics of the region heat up. It doesn’t help that the extremists get ample news coverage and that the rest of the peace-loving Muslims are treated as if we don’t exist.
One of the many things I get tired of telling people: Not all Muslims hate America and want to bring death to our door. There are Muslims in Ukraine. They too were pretty upset by the film “The Innocence of Muslims.” They managed a peaceful protest at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. They didn’t burn anything down, so it wasn’t news.
Other things you might not have seen on the news: Libyan people did step outside their doors to hold up signs in apology, and to honor the good work Ambassador Stevens did in their country. The Twitter-verse is filled not with Al-Qaeda cells, but with networks of activists young and old who worked to make the Arab Spring a possibility; activists who believe in moderation, and peace and basic human rights. And as of this writing, Libyans are pushing to clean up their own streets and handing over weapons and ammunition from last year’s revolution. It isn’t perfect. Not everyone turned in his or her weapons. But not everyone held on to them either.